Serenades and Romances

Whether it is due to the short, intense summer and the light nights is hard to say; but Danish music is full of serenades. The songs of Romanticism in particular cultivate the emotion and yearning of the summer light and the mystery of night. There is also something charmingly chaste, and a mixture of happiness and melancholy, in many of the Danish serenades and love songs. It is rarely a matter of life or death – more often simply of the girl next door. Or else the mere dream of love is actually enough. In this interpretation by tenor Mathias Hedegaard and Danish National Chamber Orchestra you can hear how the beautiful Romantic songs and serenades are fortunately returning in fine style to a new generation.

SERENADES AND ROMANCES

Whether it is due to the short, intense summer and the light nights is hard to say; but Danish music is full of serenades. The songs of Romanticism in particular cultivate the emotion and yearning of the summer light and the mystery of night.

There is also something charmingly chaste, and a mixture of happiness and melancholy, in many of the Danish serenades and love songs. It is rarely a matter of life or death - more often simply of the girl next door. Or else the mere dream of love is actually enough. Is this a typical cultural trait? One modern study has at any rate shown that the Danes are Europe's happiest nation, because they're the one that expects least.

Not many dramatic operas were composed in Denmark in the nineteenth century; on the other hand an incredible number of songs were written. In the course of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s a repertoire took form that was sung at concerts and by amateurs in the many homes with pianos.

Around World War II this singing culture began to die out, because popular community singing had its great breakthrough during the Occupation. A last climax for the Romantic Danish solo song came with the great tenor Aksel Schiøtz, who sang the reper-toire, probably better than it had ever been sung before, in the 1930s and 1940s.

The legacy of Schiøtz has been overwhelming, and unfortunately it has helped to push the Danish vocal repertoire of the nineteenth century out on a sidetrack. Today there is on the whole less singing in Denmark than ever before; not only the Romantic song repertoire, but also the very activity of singing, has been threatened. On this CD you can hear how the beautiful Romantic songs and serenades are fortunately returning in fine style to a new generation.

C.E.F. Weyse and F.L.Ae. Kunzen

C.E.F. Weyse was the greatest Danish musical name around the year 1800; a leading figure as pianist, organist, composer and cultural personality.

In 1801 a broken-off engagement had left him so depressed that he put aside the work on his major Singspiel Sovedrikken ("The Sleeping-Draught") and in the following years he wrote nothing at all. After attending the first Danish performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni in 1807 his inspiration flared up again: he finished the Singspiel, and the premiere in 1809 became Weyse's great breakthrough. "The Sleeping-Draught" is a very zestful, charming production and it won enormous popularity. The serenade "Skønjomfru, luk dit vindue op" ("Fair maiden! Throw your window wide") is one of its best-known numbers, a sterling example of Weyse's fine feeling for melody that reaches Schubertian heights. The serenade is sung by the young hunter Valentin below the window of his beloved.

The career-saving production of Don Giovanni was the work of the composer and conductor Friedrich Kunzen. In 1789 he had created a sensation and aroused great controversy with his own progressive opera Holger Danske ("Ogier the Dane"). He ended up leaving the country for a number of years, but after returning he presented his second opera, Erik Ejegod, in 1798. It was again a grand production with elements from Danish history, and the text was once more by the temperamental poet Jens Baggesen. The opera about the medieval Danish King Erik Ejegod was a success, but it has not been staged since 1827. Only the opera's most popular item, the 'ballad' "Midnattens måne" ("The Midnight Moon"), was to live on in the concert repertoire for many years. Kunzen accompanies Baggesen's saga pastiche with a melody in the folk music vein, and later he wrote a variation work for piano based on it. The song was also used in Weyse's acerbic parody Signelil sad i kakkelovnskrog ("Signelil sat in the ingle nook"), which made fun of the tragic songs of the age in ballad style.

Weyse was a very humorous, acute observer, and found a good deal of amusement in the many comic features of the young poet Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen had made his appearance in Copenhagen cultural life at a time when Weyse was the old, untouchable master, but it was at Weyse's initiative that the two formed a collaboration. He had seen Andersen's stage adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor, and took a fancy to writing a Singspiel based on another Scott novel, Kenilworth. However, the collaboration between these two very different men was to be highly problematical.

Festen på Kenilworth was the title of the production that was staged in 1836, but only the 'romance' "Hyrden græsser sine får" ("Now the shepherd tends his sheep") is known today. It is an unusually well-wrought Lied in the folksong style, sung by an itinerant singer.

Weyse took his melodic ideal from his model Mozart, and from his teacher J.A.P. Schulz, and his classicizing songs were crucial to the style known today as the "Danish song". Weyse reached his peak in the genre in his old age, when he wrote hymns and songs with razor-sharp precision. Many of the songs were written for use as school songs, and they combine simplicity with nothing less than cosmic visions. For example the evening song "Natten er så stille" ("Silent is the night now") which by no means a children's song, but a haiku-like poetic mood evocation - a high point of the Danish Golden Age.

J.P.E. Hartmann

After a performance of Festen på Kenilworth on Weyse's birthday in 1836 a circle of citizens decided to publish a collection of Weyse's songs, including "Hyrden græsser sine får", so that they would not disappear with the theatrical plays. The album formed a basis for the whole classical Danish song repertoire, which was supplemented after Weyse's death with new songs from the flourishing of National Romanticism. One of the major works of this movement was J.P.E. Hartmann's opera Liden Kirsten, where plot, characters and melodies are all inspired by original folk songs. The libretto was by Hans Christian Andersen, throughout his life a faithful friend of Hartmann's. Liden Kirsten was Andersen's most successful stage work and can still be heard with great pleasure. The vocal style is typically restrained - the closest one gets to a true aria is the leading male character Sverkel's Romance. Sverkel has just returned from Miklagård (Constantinople), where he has served the Emperor. Back in Denmark he is overcome by love of his country and not least the sight of his foster-sister Little Kirsten, who has become a beautiful young woman. He sings of both in his romance, which begins "Oh, I am home now ...?", an arioso in the folksong style.

P.E. Lange-Müller

At an advanced age Hartmann considered P.E. Lange-Müller his natural successor. Lange-Müller wrote quantities of romances and songs that became very well known, for example in a popular edition that was printed in a huge impression at the beginning of the twentieth century.

In the collection one finds for example his tuneful Roman Serenade to a text by the Norwegian poet Andreas Munch (Danish and Norwegian were at that time officially identical languages). It exists in different versions; the original one was for a male quartet, an ensemble for which Lange-Müller liked to write serenades.

Lange-Müller wrote some of his best melodies for theatrical productions that unfortunately did not live very long as such. Some of the pieces had poor scripts, others were not played in Denmark, and others again were not performed at all. The little Romantic comedy I mester Sebalds have by Sophus Bauditz was staged in 1880 and had three songs by Lange-Müller, including "Genboens første vise" ("The Neighbour's First Song"), one of his loveliest melodies. Without the original context the title does not make much sense, but it is a touching serenade, typically coloured by Lange-Müller's lush harmonies.

Festen på Solhaug is one of the lesser-known plays by the great Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Lange-Müller met Ibsen in Italy, and wrote both songs and stage music for this work of the playwright's youth, which after almost 30 years was to be revived in Norway. Lange-Müller's songs for the play have an experimental modal "Norwegian" tone that must have been inspired by his slightly older colleague and friend Edvard Grieg.

The play Peter Plus was written by Einar Christiansen, who later became well known as the librettist of the opera Saul and David by Carl Nielsen. Peter Plus was an imaginative fairytale play, and had no great success at its premiere in 1891. Only Lange-Müller was praised for his two lively, charming songs.

Lange-Müller's greatest success was his music for the fairytale play Der var engang ("Once upon a Time") by Holger Drachmann. The beautiful sere-nade "Se, natten er svanger med vellugt fin" (The night is heavy with fragrance sweet) is performed by a singer whom the lovelorn Prince has engaged to create a mood below the Princess' balcony. The first line of the serenade greatly resembles a theme found in the second movement of Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 2 from 1868 - whether there is a connection has never been proved.

Drachmann and Lange-Müller worked together on several productions over the next few years. Their last collaboration was the play Renaissance, which was staged in 1901 and had an excellent reception. The play is set in Venice and has the painter Tintoretto in the main role. Once more there is a languishing serenade (this one in 9/8 time), the gondolier's song "Lydløst leger årebladet" ("Quiet, quiet plays the oar-blade"). The theme from the serenade recurs in the fine overture.

Lange-Müller's style was now absolutely mature. He did not write many works in the remaining 25 years of his life, but was greatly respected and loved, not only because he was seen as the last bastion against the new age.

Carl Nielsen

In 1915 Danish vocal music took a new turn when Carl Nielsen and Thomas Laub published a booklet with En Snes danske Viser ("A Score of Danish Songs"). Here they revived J.A.P. Schulz's criteria for how a popular song should be formed: simple, robust, suitable for collective singing, even if there is no accompaniment. Carl Nielsen did however write a great deal of other vocal music, and some of his other vocal works became just as well-loved as his deliberately 'popular' songs. Moderen ("The Mother") was a production from 1920, celebrating the Reunification with Denmark of part of South Jutland/North Schles-wig which had been lost in the war of 1864. The high-flown verses of Helge Rode were given strong melodies by Carl Nielsen, including the love song "Min pige er så lys som rav" ("As fair as amber is my girl") and the emotive "Så bittert var mit hjerte" ("My heart had grown so bitter"). In the choral work Fynsk forår ("Springtime on Funen") the next year came a down-to-earth counterpart of the symbolic "Min pige er så lys som rav", called "Den milde dag er lys and lang" ("The tender day is light and long"). Quite in the Danish tradition a young lad sings of his great love who is no farther away than over the neighbour's hedge.

"Springtime on Funen" has always been one of Carl Nielsen's best loved pieces in Denmark, but is hardly ever performed abroad. The same goes for his two operas, Saul og David and Maskarade, perhaps because of the distinctive humour of Maskarade and the absence of real arias from both works. The love duet "Uligne-lige Pige" ("Incomparable Maiden") is one of Maskarade's most opera-like items. It is sung by the lovers Leander and Leonora when they cast off their carnival disguises - he as a shepherd, she as the goddess of flowers - in the last act.